As Disappointed As You Might Be With The GOP, What Is The Alternative?

My major complaints with the GOP are Bush's spending, and the stonewalling RINOs in Congress. And yet, what is the alternative? To vote Democrat? Or to not vote at all - which is just as helpful to Dems.

Every time I think how disappointed I am with Bush, I try to remember how much worse it could be with a legitmate Bush-hater.

The Democrats won't cut spending. They'll raise taxes. We'll see national health care. A Democratic President won't nominate moderate SCOTUS justices - unless you consider Ruth Bader Ginsberg a moderate. We'll cow tow to the UN, probably pull out of Iraq, establish relations with Cuba and Hugo Chavez. They'll be no legitimate challenge to the ban on partial birth abortion. This fall, an upcoming SCOTUS case will be whether a minor has a right to have an abortion without parental consent. If a 15 year old child wins that 'right', do you honestly expect ANY leader from the party of Planned Parenthood to challenge it?

You think gas prices are high now? Wait until you see prices caps imposed, Jimmy Carter-style, so you'll have higher prices and longer lines. We'll have a president that preaches to us the value of sacrifice, which as we all know, worked so well during the Carter years.

As disgusted as we are with George W. Bush, we can't give up on the Republican Party.

We are the majority here on FR, whom you denigrate, complain about, insult and impugn, and refute you at every turn, with aplomb and facts.

If you imagine that CT and I are being "fried", by the likes of you, then you are delusional. Facts matter, they matter a very great deal! And since you never post any facts, refuse to accept them when they are posted,but instead, immediately flame away, you open yourself to the judgment of posters and lurkers alike. All of whom have your number.

It is patently ridiculous, this far out from '08 to propose such a thread. It is even more ridiculous, to ask me to post the thread. In 2000, there were threads about the actual people taking part in the GOP primary, as well as fringe candidates. No such list exists now, nobody has really thrown his hat in the ring. Facts matter; your delusions and pipe-dreams don't matter one whit. Neither do your demands/suggestions on what I or others should do.

You may be unhappy about everything, but being nasty to me, doesn't prove your points; not that you actually have any.

The Dems woo/try to woo moderates, some of the time. If you don't think that Clinton did, then you are even more politically unsavvy than I gave you credit for.

Once a moderate Dem has actually been elected, then the "bosses" in the House ( usually the Dems in the Senate are pretty far left anyway ), majority or minority leader and his/her goons, work the newbie over; verbally, of course. I wish that the GOPers were as good at it, but they aren't.

WHAT? Dole lost because he "irritated" the base, when he was in the Senate?

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahaha

I have faith in conservative principles and believe we can persuade the electorate once they see how pathetic the 'Rat/moderate coalition actually is.

Time after time in the last 70 years conservatives have tried to win the Republican nomination. With the exception of Goldwater in 1964 they never even get enough Republican votes to win the nomination. Yet they illogically believe that conservative candidates who can't win a majority of Republican votes can win a majority of both Republican and Democratic votes. They just need to point out the failure of the left... How many times does that strategy have to fail before right wingers get a clue? Perhaps any number less than a billion is way too small a number.

Time after time after time the right has been rejected by the voters. They never ever considers that they have a problem.. They never understand that voters do not believe as they do. They think the voters.. if they only understood the right, would vote for them. They think the voters if they only understood the left would reject them. What a crock. The voters know what the right stands for and wants to do... The voters consistantly refuse to vote for them. Voters understand what the left wants to do and they don't vote for them either.

Right wingers kid themselves into believing Reagan ran as a conservative in 1980. Reagan's stump speech in 1980 has to hold the record as the best RINO speech of all time. Reagan ran as a card carrying union member, and a former union president. Reagan ran as a former Democrat and FDR fan who had not changed his views. He said that in every stump speech given in every industrial state. That is the truth. The only truly conservative President of the last 70 years.. told every voter who would listen in 1980 that he was a genuine RINO to the bone. It was what it took to get elected. What part of Reagan in 1980 promising to implement the economic polices of JFK escapes the right? It is what it takes to win.

Some people firmly believe that if the failures of the left are pointed out.. the voters will turn to the right. What a crock. Voters do not vote against people or philosophies... they vote for people and philosophies.

A majority of voters will not VOTE FOR the RIGHT wing agenda. They will not VOTE FOR the LEFT wing agenda either.

The left fully understands that voters will not support the left, so they conceal their real agenda. The right does not understand that voters will not support the right wing agenda so they proudly present their views for most voters to reject. Reagan is the exception to that belief and is the rights only success. Reagan knew the value of being perceived as a RINO. When Reagan said someone who is with me 70 percent of the time is not my enemy who was he talking about? Do you think Reagan meant RINOs were in fact his friends?

It is so far removed from reality. Suffering massive defeats never discourages the right in the least. .. "Just gotta do a better job of getting our message out!"...is their mantra. STUCK ON STUPID.. is what they really are.

Lying to themselves is what right wingers do best.

There character and moral values are far diffenent but their politics are very similiar.
"W" continues to embrace both Clinton and Ted Kennedy, literally and figuratively. His embrace of those two sends a very clear message about his approach to politics. He doesn't represent a conservative bent at all. "W" is conservative light.
He does just enough to keep the conservatives from bolting but does little to rein in spending, stop military reduction of force or dissolve the Department of Education.
"W" had the opportunity to support conservative candidates in the last general election but chose to support the likes of Arlon Spector instead of valued conservatives who were seeking office.
I don't want anymore Republicans in Congress if they are of the Geo. W. Bush variety. I will vote for any true conservative no matter their party stripe,instead of the version that the President represents.
I agree about the tax cuts as well as the importance of placing conservatives on the Supreme Court but I don't see the President fighting very strongly for the latter.
I think the President is anti-abortion as a simple political expediency and nothing more; therefore, he won't nominate anyone to the court who may vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
The energy problem is only a problem to those of us who are hit in the wallet by high energy prices. I feel that the President views current high energy prices as being fine because they are so very grand for the greatly concentrated oil business.

Yet they illogically believe that conservative candidates who can't win a majority of Republican votes can win a majority of both Republican and Democratic votes. They just need to point out the failure of the left... How many times does that strategy have to fail before right wingers get a clue?

We performed well in '94 with the Contract with America.
Of course, your beloved RINO incumbents successfully sidetracked and derailed the promised reforms. But the fact remains, the electorate responded positively to a clearly conservative agenda.

Voters do not vote against people or philosophies... they vote for people and philosophies.

Good grief...
You sure can spread a mighty thick layer of bovine excrement, can't you?

Perhaps any number less than a billion is way too small a number.

Well, a "billion" must be a pretty good estimate of the number of times this "debate" has taken place on this forum.
Bottom line: there is absolutely NO WAY on God's Green Earth that I'm ever going to accept your RINO justification of Republicrat power sharing.

"Just gotta do a better job of getting our message out!"...is their mantra. STUCK ON STUPID.. is what they really are.

So now the conservative message is "stupid"???
Blah.. blah... blah...
I suppose it's much more "pragmatic" to share Klinton's golf cart and help him rehabilitate his "legacy"...
Excuse me, but I don't have the stomach for yet another chorus of "Kumbaya"

You can sell your soul to the devil in your quest for earthly power if you want to. But in my book, eternal damnation is too high a price to pay.

While you're doing just fine rehashing history, you're not giving the present the benefit of the doubt. In the 60's through the 80's did we have an alternate media? Did we have the internet? No. We had Dan Rather, the NY Times and their ilk. That was IT.

During the 1930s ,1940s and the 1950s the media was dominated by those on the RIGHT. They tried their best to take down both Roosevelt and Truman and gain control of the house and senate for Republicans. Before TV, magazines were huge souce of political influence. Newspaper printing quality was terrible. Pictures were not good at all. Magazines had great quality pictures and were very popular. With no TV to watch,news magazines were popular. The most popular was Time magazine. But back then Time was owned by Henry Luce whose wife was a Republican congresswoman. Henry Luce hated FDR and everthing that even resembled a Democrat. Harry Truman referred to Henry Luse and his wive Clara Booth Luce as Arsenic and old Luce. The Democrats hated the biased media controled by conservatives.

The media did all it could do to defeat both Roosevelt and Truman and have republicans win the house and senate. they failed. The Demorats prevailed. Democrats won with about 75 percent of the media totally biased against them.

One weekend early the 1948 race both Dewey, the Republican Candidate, and Truman, the Democratic candidate, held week end meetings to plan their campaigns.

Time reported that Governor Dewey was meeting with trusted advisors to plan the best ways to improve American's life sytles and standard of living. The same issue reported that Truman was huddled with political hacks and cronies to plot ways to make voters think things were goind well.

NO bias in those reports, were there?

On Election night 1948 the NBC Anchor was the most popular anchor on radio. His name was H. V. Kaltonborn (there was no TV ). H.V. was totally biased against Democrats. H.V. started out the evening telling voters that it would be a short night and the planned Dewey victory celebration would likely start early. That was before the polls closed in the west. I'm sure H.V. did not intend for that to surpress the West Coast Democratic turn out. In fact ABC, NBC, and CBS stopped polling 6 weeks before the election. The reason they gave was that Dewey was so far ahead that continued polling was just a waste of money. NO bias there.. Was there.

At seven O'clock morning after the election with only a few precincts out H.V. was still on the air telling voters that while Truman was ahead in the popular vote, there was no way Truman could win.

H.V. finally at about 9 O'Clock Am the day after then election reported Truman had won. I think the fact that Dewey conceded may have lead him to thing that Dewey's chances of winning were not what they once were.

The Chicago Tribune printed 4 inch headlines in the morning edition that said DEWEY WINS!!!! The Tribunes was so biased that they did not think they needed to check the returns before writing the story about Dewey's victory.

No Republican bias in that headline... was there? The right wing media could not defeat Truman or Roosevelt or convince voters to vote for Republican candidates for office.

Eisenhowers press secretary, Lenard Hall, had very good Republican credentials. He quit his job in the Eisenhower adminstration to take over as head of the news department at the ABC television network.

You don't suppose Len Hall would have been pro Republican do you?

The media turned leftist when the first broadcast generation retired in the late 50s and early sixties and the newspaper crew that came of age in the 1930s retired.

Your belief that the media once controled what people think about the left and right political veiws just shows your ignorance of media power and of history.

The American media has always been biased. Some generations to the left and some to the right. They have never been able to effect public opinion and election outcomes. They say they can, but there is no proof of that being true.

I think it was Presdients Humphrey and McGovern who gave credit for their victorys over the hated Richard Nixon to the media and its monopolistic power.

If the new media is increasingly powerful why did Bush only carry ohio by 1 percent of the votes in 2004 when he carried it by 3.5 percent in 2000.

Just one question, ;)

In the 30's, 40's and 50's did they have a 25% payroll tax subject to the whim of big spenders in Washington?

Just as Ginsburg can find some international law to support her position, you can find some way to prove me wrong, I'm sure.

I believe the conservative message CAN win if we simply had a great charismatic candidate to speak of it. Yes, in today's world a strong celebrity could go a long way...we are a Hollywood society. Therefore the references to Reagan...

In the meantime, the current spending in DC is turning away the base. You can scream all you want about turn coats and such, but that isn't winning them back is it? The history lesson simply isn't motivating my dear. Many will go to the polls in 2008 simply to keep a Dem from getting the WH, as the lesser of 2 evils, but WHAT ABOUT 2006?? How many more seats could we GAIN if we had a clear message like the Contract with America? Seats that would make it so we don't HAVE to cater to the RINOs and Dems.

My prediction is that a strong 3rd party candidate will arise in 2008. Will it be someone who leans left or right? We all here hope it would be someone who leans left, but if the Republicans keep turning away their base, look for someone to step up to the challenge. I'm not rooting for a 3rd party. I'm rooting for the Republicans to look more like the GOP than LBJ.

Looks like when it comes to Ronald Reagan, I've gotta keep my eyes on you.

>>>>Right wingers kid themselves into believing Reagan ran as a conservative in 1980. Reagan's stump speech in 1980 has to hold the record as the best RINO speech of all time. Reagan ran as a card carrying union member, and a former union president. Reagan ran as a former Democrat and FDR fan who had not changed his views. He said that in every stump speech given in every industrial state. That is the truth. The only truly conservative President of the last 70 years.. told every voter who would listen in 1980 that he was a genuine RINO to the bone. It was what it took to get elected. What part of Reagan in 1980 promising to implement the economic polices of JFK escapes the right? It is what it takes to win.

Bunkum.

I explained this to you CT, but my words have fallen on deaf ears. First you lost on the facts concerning Reagan's acomplishment in cutting non-defense related discretionary spending and reducing overall social welfare & entitlement spending as a percentage of the budget. Now you're coming out with another misleading effort to undermine Reagan's conservative record. More cheap shots at the Reagan legacy. You're sounding more and more like a liberal Democrat. Here's what I posted to you.

"Reagan ... was a master of rhetoric. He knew how to play a crowd better then anyone and would sneak in little tidbits that would play up the specific audience he was speaking to. He learned this from his days touring the nation for GE."

Nobody did this better then Reagan. Reagan was expressing the experience he had gained throughout his life and how that expertise would help him to govern the nation better then Jimmah Carter. Reagan was molding conservative policy rhetoric into conservative populism. Reagan's wise political rhetoric didn't mean he was expressing anything to do with RINOism.

Reagan's speeches during the 1980 campaign were far removed from the liberal New Deal and Great Society programs that expanded the federal bureaucracy, sending social welfare and entitlement spending were no man had gone before. Reagan emphasised a campaign platform of tax cuts, spending reform, deregulation, rebuilding the military and getting the US economy back on track. That meant advancing a fiscally responsible policy agenda. Once in office that's exactly what the Reagan administration did. The 1981 Economic Recovery and Tax Act was the driving force behind that got the US economic engine going. Not only were taxes vut, but inflation, interest rates and unemployment rates came tumbling down. While spending, investment and savings went up.

>>>>Lying to themselves is what right wingers do best.

Spoken like a good leftwinger.

Remember this speech CT?

Below is the greatest stump speech anyone has ever given. At least in my lifetime. It was given by Ronald Reagan in support of Barry Goldwater's 1964 presidential campaign effort. It's titled, "A Time For Choosing", aka. "The Speech". It speaks to the fundamental values that has made America great. Conservative values. This version is from that broadcast.

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I am going to talk of controversial things. I make no apology for this.

It's time we asked ourselves if we still know the freedoms intended for us by the Founding Fathers. James Madison said, "We base all our experiments on the capacity of mankind for self government."

This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had noother source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.

You and I are told we must choose between a left or right, but I suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down. Up to man's age-old dream-the maximum of individual freedom consistent with order or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. Regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would sacrifice freedom for security have embarked on this downward path. Plutarch warned, "The real destroyer of the liberties of the people is he who spreads among them bounties, donations and benefits."

The Founding Fathers knew a government can't control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, "What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power." But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we're always "against," never "for" anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments....

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward I restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him.... But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure....

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector's share is 37 cents of -very dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor's fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can't socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he'll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what's at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that "the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals." And he said, "There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty."

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children's children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

Here's a little rhetoric from a Reagan speech given back in the 1970`s. It's a bit long to post here. Reagan's words are both powerful and prophetic and go to the core of the conservative movement in America that existed back then and still exists today.

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From Reagan's Speech at the 4th Annual CPAC Convention: A New Republican Party, February 6, 1977.

You know, as I do, that most commentators make a distinction between they call “social” conservatism and “economic” conservatism. The so-called social issues—law and order, abortion, busing, quota systems—are usually associated with blue-collar, ethnic and religious groups themselves traditionally associated with the Democratic Party. The economic issues—inflation, deficit spending and big government—are usually associated with Republican Party members and independents who concentrate their attention on economic matters.

Now I am willing to accept this view of two major kinds of conservatism—or, better still, two different conservative constituencies. But at the same time let me say that the old lines that once clearly divided these two kinds of conservatism are disappearing.

In fact, the time has come to see if it is possible to present a program of action based on political principle that can attract those interested in the so-called “social” issues and those interested in “economic” issues. In short, isn't it possible to combine the two major segments of contemporary American conservatism into one politically effective whole?

I believe the answer is: Yes, it is possible to create a political entity that will reflect the views of the great, hitherto, conservative majority. We went a long way toward doing it in California. We can do it in America. This is not a dream, a wistful hope. It is and has been a reality. I have seen the conservative future and it works.

Let me say again what I said to our conservative friends from the academic world: What I envision is not simply a melding together of the two branches of American conservatism into a temporary uneasy alliance, but the creation of a new, lasting majority.

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Reagan not only revived the Republican Party with his election in 1980. Reagan gave the GOP a solid conservative agenda that in many ways still guides its politics today.

Rush has been saying ...

Rush ... Rush is so bright, I heard his mother called him SUN!

Just a generation or so ago the south was Solidly Democratic and New England was solidly Republican. In many southern states there was no Republican party. All offices from township trustee to Senator were held by Democrats. Republicans did not even nominate candidates for offices other than President and Vice President. And Republican Presidents rarely won any southern states.

New England Republicans were liberal and Southern Democrats were Conservative. The South had very conservative Democrats like Strom Thurman of South Carolina. And New England had very liberal Repubicans like Nelson Rockefeller of New York. During the 50's and 60's the liberal Republicans were called the Rockefeller wing of the Republican party.

Over the last 40 years and more the south gradually changed until Louisiana is about the only Democratic state left in the south.

It was called the re-alignment. But few have talked about another realignment. It is taking place in New England. Slowly the former liberal Republican states have been transitioning into liberal Democrat States.

As Conservative Democrats became an extinct species, liberal Republicans became an endangered species. When the current liberal republicans retire they will be replaced by Liberal Democrats. Liberal Republicans will become extinct.

After the 2000 election with Republicans holding the senate by a hair, Trent Lott assured Bush he could shape Jim Jeffords up. After all Trent and Jim were singing buddies. Trent was sure all it would take is swift kick in Jefford's pants and Jefford would line up and vote conservative like a good little senator should.

But the swift kick sent Jeffords into Tom Daschles office and when Jeffords left he was no longer a Republican. MY! MY! MY! Few should have been surprised.

That taught Karl Rove and Bush a very good lesson. It was a lesson Democrats has learned years earlier. When Democrats went after Strom Thurman to straigten up and fly like a Liberal he just changed parties. Several Southern Senators and Congressmen did the same. Democrats stopped even saying anything about conservative Democrats.. They didn't even trash Zell Miller when that Democratic Senator went on the campaign trail with President Bush.

What would have been the reaction if Chaffee had Campaigned for Kerry? HmmmmmmmmmmmmmmH?

Why would Snowe, Chaffee and others jump parties if they were leaned on?

Because they have to reflect the politics of the state they represent. If Strom had become a flaming liberal, he would have been defeated. By becoming a Republican Conservative he became an institution.

The same is true of Snowe, Chaffee et all. What would happen if the Republicans tried to take on Snowe. She would just visit Reid. She would ask, "If I become a Democrat will you pay for some of my campaign. Reid would just hand her blank check with a 9 on it... saying just add zeros after the 9 until you get enough money to win.. Don't forget to make the zeros small so you can add a lot of them to the amount."

The days of Republicans being elected from New England is fast drawing to a close.

The odds of electing a conservative in a liberal state are zilch. The odds of electing a liberal in a conservative state is zilch.

All of New England with the exception of New Hamshire are solidly liberal states. And New Hampshire is growing less and less consevative every year. It will soon be liberal state as well.

Republicans have control of the Senate because, the Republican party still has some Liberal Republican Senators and the Democrats have lost the last of their Conservative Democrats. Does the name Zell Miller ring a bell.

Liberal Republican Senators from liberal states have it made. We have to have their votes to accomplish anything and the Democrats will pay any price to get them. They know what it is ike to be wooed.

There are other states in transition. For example West Virginia is transitioning to a Republican state but it still has two Democratic Senators. There are other examples of states in transition as well.

When the realignment is complete sometime in the next 10 to 20 years or so, the Conservatives will have about 42 Conservative Senators and Democrats will have about 34 liberal Senators. That will leave some combination of 24 RINOs and DINOs. At that point the Republicans should have about 54 senators to the Democrats 46. With 42 conservative senators and from 10 to 16 RINOs Conservatives should do well.

But doing things to hasten the transition from Liberal New England Republican to Liberal New England Democrat is never in a conservatives best interest.

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